Free Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo Page B

was on the reservation list. He used the time to review the electoral laws and the regulations for observers.
    That night, his bus left only fifteen minutes late. Another sign that Ayacucho was moving with a firm step toward the future. Yawarmayo was seven hours to the northeast, toward Ceja de Selva. Although the darkness did not allow him to see anything through the window, the prosecutor made the trip guessing at the unpaved roads the bus was rattling along, the flat-top hills that surrounded the city, and then the progressive change of the countryside from dry sierra to the wild green of the mountains. From time to time he dozed off and was awakened by the jolting of the bus over some pothole. A moment came when he did not know if he was asleep or awake, if his happiness was real or dreamed.
    Until he opened his eyes.
    The bus had stopped. He looked at the time: four in the morning. He saw the fogged-over glass in the windows. He wiped his so he could look outside. Lashed by the wind, the rain fell horizontally. It was hailing. He noticed that the person sitting beside him had disappeared, along with a good number of other people. The lights were turned on and the bus was half empty, occupied only by women with sleep-crusted eyes. From the door, someone, perhaps the driver, was shouting:
    “They said for all the men to get out! Only the men!”
    The prosecutor did not understand what was going on. He tried to catch a glimpse of something in the darkness outside. The interior lights of the bus allowed him to make out only somehooded silhouettes and the projection of bayonets slung over their shoulders.
    He had a rapid memory of the last time he had visited Ayacucho to see his mother before he came back to live there. It had been in the early eighties, when he was a recent appointee to the ministry. Before it reached the city, his bus had been stopped by a terrorist group that had asked all the passengers for their identification. The military men wearing civilian clothes ate their papers. The prosecutor also swallowed his identity card from the Ministry of Justice. The terrorists had taken all the electoral identification cards from the bus and then torn them up in front of the owners:
    “You no longer have documents,” they shouted, “you can't vote, you're not citizens! Long Live the People's War! Long Live the Communist Party of Peru! Long Live President Gonzalo!”
    They made everyone repeat their slogans and left after stealing the little the passengers had with them. They wore balaclavas and carried weapons. Like those who had stopped the bus now.
    At the door, the driver called again for the men. Two others who had been asleep walked to the door, rubbing their eyes. The prosecutor wondered if he ought to swallow his identification as an election inspector. But the document was encased in plastic. It was impossible to chew. He hid it under his seat and stood up. He walked to the door. When he climbed down, a man in a black balaclava began to shove him and drag him to the line that the others were forming. The rain fell like a whip against his face. He verified with relief that the man pushing him wore the green uniform of the army. He tried to identify himself:
    “I am Associate District Prosecutor Félix … !”
    The other man responded with a shove. When his turn came, a sergeant faced him, also hidden behind his balaclava. Between the mask, the rain, the fear, and his dreadful Spanish, he could hardly be heard when he shouted:
    “shhhhwmmmmyrccccrrrt!”
    Accustomed to roundups, the prosecutor took out his national ID. The other man scrutinized it carefully and looked the functionary in the face. It was difficult to read the expression in his eyes. He returned the document and shouted again:
    “shhhhwmmmmmyyrrrrccccrt!”
    The prosecutor showed him his military identification. The other man nodded and returned it to him. The first man pushed him back to the bus. The prosecutor climbed in, feeling calmer,